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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953310">A Ballad in E Minor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/meerself/pseuds/meerself'>meerself</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Enemies to Friends, Episode: s02e05 Red Door, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Possibly Unrequited Love, Romance, Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:55:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,456</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/meerself/pseuds/meerself</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In his way too long life Elijah hadn't been scared of much but he is terrified of the demon awakened by his mother's torture. The Red Door, tormenting him, is on the verge of breaking and he is afraid he will break – completely, finally – along with it. In the aftermath of the revelations and their consequences, Elijah receives help from an unexpected visitor. </p><p>_______</p><p>"Hello Elijah!", she said, her voice, husky as usual, and all too familiar in it's thrice removed intonation. She sounded exasperated, disappointed, tired but – and he could be wrong and wanted not to be – also deeply saddened.<br/>Panting, blinking, he looked up, letting his upset eyes adjust to the form that was sitting – with the sun in her back – on his desk, making the glow about her silhouette painful to look at.<br/>Elijah tried to rationalize the possibility of her being here but only came up with a wisp hope that she too, like most of what he was seeing these days, was just an apparition of his jumbled mind. Her seeing him like this? No. No!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elena Gilbert/Elijah Mikaelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a story I've been working on (for far too long). It's a one-shot, which I'll be posting in multiple chapters just to not have in one piece. Long reads are awesome but sometimes hard to start because – as an avid fanfiction reader I know that – it's a commitment. It is finished and I'll be posting new parts of this every few days. But – and I might need your help with it – something of an epilogue could be added. Just tell me, at the end, if you need more of a resolution or not.</p><p>As a big Elena/Elijah shipper I felt this moment could have been a perfect crossover and something to warm our shipper hearts. I mean, they have been hinting a little something something here and there anyway...so why not give it to us?!</p><p>Disclaimers: The characters and the franchise obviously not mine. I'm just borrowing the characters to have a little fun. </p><p> </p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For centuries he had not felt this insanely miserable, not even being daggered had rendered him feeling this rotten and Elijah thought, with a sense of annoyance, that this was what being human must feel like. A thousand plus years in his immortal body had afforded him with the blessed ignorance of how frail his human self had been. </p><p>The Red Door flashed before his eyes like a chased fire, almost liquid as it burned it's vivid color to his retinas. Distant screams reverberated in the back of his mind with every unnecessary breath he took. There was blood, so much blood. Faces snuck glances through the barely open door. Some of them he knew all too well, others he barely remembered but the majority were bleeding together in the sheer vastness of nameless grimaces. All staring at him with dead eyes.<br/>
He knew he had to push all of these ghosts back, to shut the door quickly in the vain hope of banishing these horrible images if he wanted any chance of holding onto his sanity at least for a bit longer.</p><p>Thus it was no wonder that the quiet voice startled him so deeply that his body instinctively rushed him into the darkest, farthest corner of the room. His shoulder slammed into the wooden paneling so hard it splintered and embedded some malicious spikes into his skin.   </p><p>"Hello Elijah!", she said, her voice, husky as usual, and all too familiar in it's thrice removed intonation. She sounded exasperated, disappointed, tired but – and he could be wrong and wanted not to be – also deeply saddened.<br/>
Panting, blinking, he looked up, letting his upset eyes adjust to the form that was sitting – with the sun in her back – on his desk, making the glow about her silhouette painful to look at.<br/>
Elijah tried to rationalize the possibility of her being here but only came up with a wisp hope that she too, like most of what he was seeing these days, was just an apparition of his jumbled mind. Her seeing him like this? No. No!</p><p>"Elena?" His voice sounded pathetic even – especially – to himself. Appearing weak, sounding weak, feeling weak; it was not something he was used to, no – and he found that he hated it. Even in his human life had he, had his family, commanded an air of power, always. Only in the earliest stages of his new undead life, when the hunger threatened to overwhelm him – just like the memories seemed to now – had he been without his comfortable blanket of power and control. The Red Door flashed brightly again, forcing him to turn into himself once more, away from the girl – woman now – in front of him. </p><p>He heard her uneasy intake of breath and wanted to shout at her that he didn't need, didn't want her pity. Not hers. Never hers!</p><p>He knew what he must look like to her. He had gathered enough in the few moments since his awakening to know that he must seem like some feral being, a wild, hurt animal, caught and pushed into a cage – and he actually felt exactly like one, particularly under her dark and soulful gaze.</p><p>Through gritted teeth he managed to seethe: "What are you doing here, Elena?" His head didn't ring as much as it had shortly after regaining consciousness and he was more relieved than he'd like to admit. Everything still hurt but maybe he would be able to get some answers now without wanting to rip his ears off.</p><p>"I've been...summoned by your brother." She halted to find a good enough phrasing for what undoubtedly was something much more unpleasant, adding a tint of something to her words. He was amused by her sarcasm and snorted disdainfully at it.<br/>
"Why?", he rasped and they both knew the question actually was: "Why would he ask you to come? Of all people, why you?"</p><p>Another deep breath, exasperated and annoyed, left her painted lips. "It's been decided," – and Elijah knew that Klaus had decided – "that I might be able to find out what's wrong with you. Help you." Her cadence changed throughout the sentence from an aloof dislike to an actual, palpable sound of hope and he could feel that hope slap him in the face, punch him in the gut.<br/>
Another sneer rang from his corner and it was so foreign to him, he at first didn't realize it had been him who had produced this patronizing sound.</p><p>The Red Door. A face. A scream. The painful wave came and went and in its wake it only left the animal to respond when he reopened his eyes: "And what, do you think, little girl, will you be able to do?" He didn't mean it and did all the same. The weakness, the pain, the approaching memories he felt banging at the door with ever-growing vigor – they all left him frustrated, frightened, hopeless. He didn't deal well with this existential kind of fear. Never really had to.</p><p>He saw Elena rise from the desk, square her shoulders as she obviously felt challenged by his biting tone, and approached him slowly. "You can bark at me all you want, Elijah." She crouched down and leveled eyes with him. “But as I see it, your arrogance is not going to help you this time.” </p><p>Lashing out in fear and anger had always been Klaus' forte, his shield. Elijah was surprised that he had taken to his brother’s methods to avoid emotional confrontations. Her calling him out on it had stripped him of even that to hide behind. The half-hearted attempt to push her away, to save face, had failed and his shoulders lost their tense square. Gone was all the malice he had felt only moments before. Being so close to the woman that bore not only his first lover's but also his first victim's face, so close to the scent that he had always – from the moment in that abandoned mansion onwards – connected with temptation, was disabling. </p><p>Momentarily taken aback Elijah didn’t find the wit to respond to her insolence before she continued in the same unabashed tone. She took his silence as an opening to continue.</p><p>"You've been out of it for three days." Three days? How was that possible? "You've been mumbling nonsense most of the time. But every now and then you would shout Tatia's name."</p><p>Flash. Pain.</p><p>"Beg for her forgiveness."</p><p>Flash. More pain.</p><p>"And because Klaus can't get in touch with the original model and because he isn’t known for being at all patient, with anything really, he thought he'd fly in the next best thing.” She matched his anger in snottiness and Elijah didn't appreciate her sarcasm that, undoubtedly, was either the result of the elder Salvatore's influence or her time spent without her emotions – or both, he didn't care which.<br/>
Elena had always done well enough without it. Her using it in Willoughby, in that snide way, had reminded him all too much of Katherine. It had left him with a bitter aftertaste, hearing her like that, like Katerina, and it should have been the thing to clue him in that entangling himself with the first Doppelgänger again was for many reasons, but none of which were the deceiving woman herself. False hopes and promises, loneliness, had silenced the cautious voice in him and had him abandon all good sense and reason.</p><p>"Leave, please. I don't want to harm you." His voice sounded hoarse. Weak. Again. Still. Fuck. He wasn't weak. He couldn't be. Being weak meant losing control. Losing control meant that others could see. Others seeing meant them knowing what he had done and that meant losing everything...everyone.</p><p>His thoughts made the Red Door squeak just a little bit louder, open just a fraction wider, render his defenses even more useless. A wave of pain surged through him again. He clutched at his head as his mother's words in a prisoner's voice filled him with doubt, echoing off the walls of his mind, with tales of Red Doors, of cleaned hands, of deeds done and appearances kept.</p><p>Strong hands – too strong – grasped his face making him look up. Elena. He saw her mouth. It was torn open as if she was shouting, but the voices were so loud. So loud!</p><p>"Elijah!" Through the blur of his mind, he imagined he could read the movement of her lips. He concentrated again on her mouth, her lips, as they seemed to form his name. He clung to it. "Elijah!"<br/>
This time he heard her, and with her voice, he heard another: His. Screaming in agony.<br/>
"Please, come back!", she begged him. "Please! Please." Again he focussed on her: Her voice, her frantic eyes, her skin on his, her powerful hands, now caressing his cheeks, forehead, mouth, trying to soothe him with a panicked but gentle persistence.</p><p>Slowly his sore throat gave out and the screaming stopped. "What is happening to me?" Elijah whispered through the torment cursing through his body and mind. He stared at her, into her, wishing for her eyes to carry the answers. Her face was filled with nothing but desperation and fear. She ran her hands over his face again and he leaned heavily into them, clung to them, finding reprieve in the caress, as if her touch was absolution.</p><p>"I don't know, Elijah." Her hand was ghosting through his sweat-soaked hair. "I don't know." She sighed more gravely. The tender motion was repeated again and again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A moment passed where they just sat on the hardwood floor, slumped in the corner, one taking, one offering strength.</p><p>"I know that you need to feed, though." She broke the silence and her hands disappeared. He felt their loss instantly. Two beats later she had reappeared at his side, one hand occupied with a glass filled with someone else's life force, shimmering like rubies in the stark sunbeam, the other reclaiming its previous position on his face – as if it was naturally supposed to be there. </p><p>Sitting up slightly, trying to coerce at least a fickle iota of control into his body, he took the offered tumbler. With greedy gulps, he downed the red liquid and felt some ease, some clarity return to him.<br/>
The effect must have been noticeable on the outside of his mind as well when a small smile graced her lips and she breathed: "There you are."</p><p>Looking down he found her free hand and took it, squeezed it, a thank you.</p><p>"Are you better now?", she inquired. He nodded in response, once, as he was still clinging to her hand. Elijah was fascinated by it. While running his thumb over the tiny knuckles, mapping the softness of her skin that was apparently representative for her entire being, he found himself formulating excuses, as to why he needed this physical connection and why he was so boldly taking what she offered without another thought, why he allowed himself this moment of uninhibited selfishness. How she was able to express this depth of sorrow over him and his – lightly formulated – predicament after all the pain he had left her with, was a complete and utter mystery to him. </p><p>“Not good, but better, yes. Thank you.”</p><p>His mind cleared more and more and he requested another serving of blood.</p><p>Having to ask for it felt humiliating. He detested being dependent not only on her to aid him in his rejuvenation but on the fluid itself that needed to be taken forcefully from others just to quench his thirst.<br/>
Yes, he had enjoyed it once upon a time – the rush, the hunt, the thrill, the power – as much as any other vampire. Maybe even more so. He had enjoyed taking it brutally as well as covertly, freely given, but the guilt that had always followed was a lingering aftertaste long after the burn in his throat had been settled to a slow simmer. No matter how much or how often he had tried to extinguish the heavy feeling, it never really left him. He had long ago accepted and welcomed it as a constant companion and later on even as a guide in his too long, too empty life.  </p><p>As he put the glass' rim against his lips he saw her eyeing him carefully. Too careful. Setting the glass aside before even taking another sip he bestowed the same scrutiny upon her. Feeling more aware of everything around him now, he noticed that, too. He was all too familiar with that look. "What is it?"</p><p>Feeling caught, she lowered her eyes. "I don't know what's going on with you but," Ah, there it was. But. He dropped her hand as if burned and withdrew ever so slightly. His life was filled with buts and ifs and whens and he was tired of the agendas hidden behind these small words. Yes, Elena's and his relationship was riddled with arrangements, deals, and unkept promises but he couldn't help the unsettling defeat he felt in finding that this, now, her help, her hands, her fear for him, was yet another deal, held an underlying goal. And just like that he placed the thousand-year-old mask of the unforgiving Original back over his face and held the spark of something tender that had bloomed between them in his palm, ready to extinguish it with a snap of his wrist.</p><p>Elena looked up, hurt, and re-secured his hand in hers. He saw her determination and marveled at her quick recovery from the doe he had first met all these years ago to the fierce woman she had become.<br/>
"But," she pronounced strongly. "we had to arrange for some precautions." He willed her to go on and she did. "I want to help with what's going on with you but for my safety and those out there", she gestured to the window. "we got a witch to draw some of your power, which in return might make you feel a little weak."<br/>
"You did what?", he growled but she squeezed his hand, tore at it, drew him back from the anger he was quickly spiraling towards, and her persistence afforded him with an added moment of patience to hear her out.<br/>
"We're kinda locked in this room right now. We can't leave. The witch draws enough power from you to keep you here and for me to have a fighting chance if it ever came to...you know, having to knock you out or something.”<br/>
Elijah was furious. Desperately so. The obvious ploy against him – though not nearly as menacing as many others have been, especially when Niklaus was involved –  was not what actually angered him. He loathed his own understanding as to why they had conspired against him and confined him to this room.</p><p>Had he not himself tried fiercely to contain the dangers he knew were growing within?</p><p>For a while now he had tied his tie a little tighter, buttoned his buttons even more carefully and polished his shoes extra shiny, so he could play pretend a little longer, to not have to face what undeniably everyone else knew and saw regardless of his efforts: he was unsafe, explosive, a monster just waiting to rupture his well-pressed suits and well-kempt attire. He should have addressed on his own a while ago, what they were attempting now: putting an end to this. </p><p>So, as quickly as the fury boiled to the brim, it left him equally fast. With one hand clutched over his eyes, he sank hunched over with a small whimper. He was just so incredibly tired.<br/>
“Let me help you.”, she whispered and he felt her voice rip at something on his soul – assuming he had one of course, which he wasn’t all too sure of.<br/>
“Please.” Elena’s hands, back in his hair, did things to him he didn’t dare touch as willingly and unrestrained as she seemed to be able to touch him. Even knowing what he was, how very delicate his control was at the moment, she had appeared once again fearlessly at his side. Was it stupidity? Didn’t she see how dangerous he was? She grew up, matured in the supernatural world, and knew of many dangerous creatures. So no, this wasn’t naiveté. It was something he had valued in her the moment he had dared look past the Petrova face. The thing he had labeled in a letter, the thing she’d tried and luckily failed to burn along with said script, her house, and her brother's corpse.</p><p>“Elijah.” </p><p>But, did he care what it was that kept her at his side right now? Did it matter? Because as much as he didn’t want to examine and delve into the emotions she set alight – no matter how aware or not he might have been of their existence – he knew he would take everything she was willing to give. He was a drowning man and she was the shore.<br/>
Turning his head to the side – careful not to move too fast, he didn’t want to scare her caresses away – he glanced at the dark-haired woman next to him.<br/>
“I’m glad.”, he said, his voice soft, almost peaceful. She furrowed her brow, not understanding. Of course, how could she?<br/>
She continued with her minuscule ministrations which made him feel so much more precious to her than he surely was. “I’m glad you have regained your humanity.” His voice low, still coarse from the weighing weakness that had settled bone-deep.</p><p>Her hand stilled at that, but only for a breath. “Yeah. That.” She lowered her head almost as if in shame. Elijah was confused by her reaction. “I did my rounds to atone for what I’ve done while I was...you know...a bitch?!” He smiled at that, as did she. Though hers was humorless and sad, reminiscing and regretful, whereas his was genuine happiness. </p><p>Her body and mind were young, fresh, pure compared to his millennium-old pile of sad memories and over-exhausted emotions, yet her soul had always felt at least as old as his own. She held her own in an unusually gracious way, which was not only uncommon for her age but especially for the time she was born into. She was careful in her wording and seemed to be even more apt to do so in his presence. Be it because she was afraid to say the wrong thing with him or out of respect for his own inclination to maintain a certain linguistic standard or maybe even in an effort to impress him and convince him that she was not the frail, young girl the Salvatores liked to see her as. Sometimes though she would slip, like right now, and show her age and he was glad that she did. Glad that she wasn’t so deeply wounded and broken and timeworn by her dark and cruel past to have lost her youth completely. He was glad that his own crimes against Elena hadn’t robbed her of that sliver of normalcy.</p><p>“But I never got around apologizing to you. So: I’m sorry,” she said simply.<br/>
“Whatever for?”, he encouraged curiously, sitting back up. Her hand slipped from his head and he wanted it back but as she entwined her digits in his he was placated. He wasn’t sure if it was for his comfort or her very own at this moment. He didn’t care.<br/>

“For pretending to be Katherine. For trying to fool you, even though I didn’t know it would be you I’d be fooling when I waited there. I hate lying to you and I did and even though I didn’t mean to...I’m sorry.” Her ramble made her flustered and him even more amused.</p><p>If only she knew. If only.</p><p>He smiled. A true smile. To him it was miraculous that someone – a vampire nonetheless – could possibly be sorry for something so negligible, something he hadn’t lost a second, not even a first, thought about. Not about the charade at least.<br/>
“Also I was petty and I said things that were none of my business at all and I was disrespectful and I was intentionally cruel.” Cruel. Elena Gilbert wasn’t cruel. Not if she could avoid it and if she was, it was never deliberate.<br/>

“Elena, you weren’t yourself...”, he tried to cut in but she kept on.<br/>

“But I was and I was so...so...I mean, I wasn’t really anything...didn’t feel anything, but I was...”<br/>
And then there was the shame again. The eyes downcast. He could feel her holding back. She didn’t want to talk about whatever she had felt that day but he knew, just knew, that she would eventually go on because each of them had learned what lying to the other brought: chaos, pain, death. He himself had secretly sworn to never lie to her ever again. They once had a truce: an afternoon of alignment, of truth. To him it had felt right, she had proven herself to him – she had come back – as he had to her. He hadn’t felt a genuine need to gain someone’s trust since taking care of a young boy, who grew up to be Klaus’ and his successor. Elijah was sure that she felt the same, had made her own vows after the ball, after Mother, after the caves.</p><p>Her honesty that day in that passage in a small town of no consequence had turned out to be the voice of reason when his own had left him defenseless and foolish. He was certain that her restored emotions only strengthened her own resolve to uphold her promise. She quietly admitted then: “I was disappointed.”<br/>
That word struck him unexpectedly. Disappointed. Red. “You falling for Katherine’s old tricks, her lies again...it made me angry and, yeah, disappointed.”<br/>

The Red Door appeared fully now. It creaked and breathed a moan from all the pressure it had to endure. He closed his eyes to ward off the images, to hold on just a little while longer. Not now. Please.</p><p>Disappointment – oh, didn’t he know that feeling all too well? Wasn’t that exactly what he felt every day, each time he chanced a glance into a mirror? 

Please. Not. Now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Why were you disappointed, Elena?” He pushed these words past his lips, hoping with all he had that they didn’t sound as strained as they felt.</p>
<p>He didn’t even dwell on the fact that she had felt anything at all when they were in each other’s presence for those few hours all these months ago. If anyone knew that abandoning one’s emotions wasn’t ever a complete lack of these, it was him. The switch was a myth. A tale he had spun himself eons ago to give form to the overload vampire emotions sometimes could be and how he himself had chosen to handle them. Something he had indulged in only a few, sad times. Times he also cared not to revisit.</p>
<p>The door heaved a long, sad sigh at that. Maybe that’s why it just had to burst sooner or later. He held in too many things that he didn’t want to deal with, multiplying each and every day.</p>
<p>“I hated her. I didn’t even know I could hate someone as much as I hated her.” She spoke past the storming images that continued to rage inside of him. She didn’t know that the door had creaked again and she wouldn’t. Not if he could help it. “She had taken everything from me. And after everything she had done to me, to my friends, to you...she was back in your good graces? Back to be forgiven? Back to be your...” Her voice rose until it suddenly stopped, casting him a look as if having been found out. And still, she held back.</p>
<p>Her frown deepened and he could feel the things she left unsaid, could almost touch them. He felt them despite the war his chaotic mind seemed to fight against itself.</p>
<p>She took a deep breath. Calming herself visibly with each stroke of air. He laughed into himself, finding a sad humor in the strength that this slip of a girl held despite her age while he felt so utterly and completely fragile. Or maybe, he mused, it was because of her age. Maybe, she too will battle her own Red Door, her monsters, that would threaten to overwhelm her, in a thousand years’ time.</p>
<p>Sadly she mistook his dry laugh for something vainer than anything he hoped he had ever displayed in her presence. “Sorry. This isn’t about me.”, she began but he stopped her.</p>
<p>“No, please. Continue.” He offered but she kept on refusing. For the first time on this unconventional day, she didn’t dare look at him openly, held her eyes, her soul closed off. Locked away. He understood her need to do so and granted her this moment of retreat. Yet he did store away the curiosity and questions he had for her.</p>
<p>“Tell me, Elena: What exactly has Klaus told you about my...dilemma?”</p>
<p>As much as he hated admitting to his sickened state of mind, to her of all people, the irony was that there was no one he knew, who would display the same degree of compassion and understanding, of actual empathy for him but her. He had already given up on denying himself the comfort she had offered, would continue to offer – he was sure – and he couldn’t find the strength to be without it. On the contrary, something in him pushed him to go further. To trust her even more. To confide in her. To let her see what he so desperately wanted to hide. Everything he had taught himself for a millennium struggled against the idea of letting someone in. But looking up at her, her eyes – so similar and so different from her ancestors’ – looking at their strange companionship, that had always felt oddly closer than it was supposed to, that had inexplicably taken a leap in the last hour, he wanted to give in to the desire to just not carry it all by himself anymore. Yes, it was selfish but it didn’t matter. He wanted it anyway.</p>
<p>“He told me about your kidnapping, about your mother, and that she tortured you. That she did something to you that freaked you out.” She explained. “He said you’re not yourself right now. That you have...he basically told me that you’re going crazy!” Elena quickly gave up tiptoeing around his brother’s opinion on the situation. Klaus was someone who knew Elijah all too well, irritably so, and no doubt was troubled by it, if not scared by his older brother’s sudden strangeness. Elijah knew: ordering Elena to come was Klaus’ last resort, his show of sorrow, of fear and maybe even love. It was a Hail Mary if he’d ever seen one.</p>
<p>“Let her in!”, the Red Door whispered and Elijah looked up at Elena who still held his one hand as if until today they hadn’t kept a well assumed physical distance from each other, as if her touching him was nothing unusual. But it was. It was anything but usual, but ordinary. To him it was extraordinary. No one had, in a long time, touched him so deliberately, so easily, so unbiasedly. He wanted to weep at how much he – as he became more and more aware now that he’d gotten a taste of it – had missed it.</p>
<p>Elijah brought his free hand up and grazed his thumb over his brow. A motion to stall for a second, to let the “crazy” sink in. He snickered. He took a deep breath. He let his hand fall.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid Klaus is correct in his assessment. I seem to have lost a few...marbles...so to speak.”</p>
<p>She quietly looked at him and her silence gave him room and her hand the strength to finally talk.</p>
<p>“Mother, she captured me. She strung me up. She did everything to break me enough to enter my mind, to fill it with what I thought to be lies until... until I knew she was telling the truth. Not about her proclaimed care for my siblings or me, of course. I will never make the mistake of believing that lie ever again.”</p>
<p>He knew how bitter he sounded and didn’t care to pretend otherwise. She was his mother. How could she, how...his mind trailed off and he quickly tried to reel his straying thoughts back in. Those were musings for another time.</p>
<p>“What did she tell you?” She gently pushed.</p>
<p>The sun was still as bright as it had been when he had woken up but it didn’t bother him anymore. It was nothing in comparison. There were other things now, that burnt far worse. All his secrets were surging forwards, pressing against his soul, leaving no room for anything but the need for freedom. The truth wanted to get out, he could sense it; the beast that his mother had awakened in his head finally saw a chance to escape. And its claws were made of fire. At least that's what it felt like. </p>
<p>Suddenly he felt dizzy. A head rush. Without even meaning to or noticing he had abruptly stood up. He swayed a little and sought support on the wall next to him for a minute. The tiny needles of the shrapnel-wood that had fused with his fast healing skin pinched and burned as he stretched his arm to support his unsteady body. Everything within him struggled with the concept of sharing his innermost secrets, his demons. Apparently so much so that his body tore him from the situation without his permission, wanting to flee from the impending pain. The Red Door reminded him instantly, incessantly that there was no way that he would be able to run from the truth for much longer.</p>
<p>As he took a deep breath, Elijah straightened his back and pushed off the wall. With one wistful glimpse at her abandoned hand, he started walking towards the large window. If he was going to overstep each and every emotional barrier he had carefully and masterfully crafted, he needed to distance himself from her for a moment. The suffocating feeling in his lungs had nothing to do with air.</p>
<p>After a while, Elijah could sense Elena beside him. The hairs on his arm stood up on their ends as if her presence alone elicited goosebumps but he was sure that his body only wanted to reach out and touch her when he would not allow himself this respite in his darkest confession. How badly he wanted to turn and run.</p>
<p>With a pained grimace, he turned from the sun towards her next to him and felt equally blinded. Her worry and care for him – for him – shone intense and unrestricted, her compassion a beacon in his gradually darkening existence.</p>
<p>“What is the Red Door?” Her voice was careful, too quiet to match the claustrophobic tension that her question triggered. The Red Door was now there, palpable, entwined itself around him like an old, sinful lover that was out to seduce him – driving slow fingers through his hair, wrapping long sinuous arms around his neck, caressing his thighs with practiced hands as it’s leg drew between his, closing in on his apex. Somehow Katerina’s face appeared as he tried to disentangle himself from that dangerous creature and thought it quite fitting.</p>
<p>“How…?”, he whispered. How do you know? How do you not fear me? How is it that you must be the one to see it all? How will this all end? All these questions were attached to the small word.<br/>
She answered just one.</p>
<p>“You said something about it. Like Tatia’s name, you said it. Over and over.” She frowned. “What is it?”</p>
<p>He could almost smell the stench of blood behind the Red Door – just like his mother’s slaughterhouse had smelt and inescapably his own. Her quiet question was shaped like a key. It would fit perfectly into the lock of the door. And it was trembling, gleeful, anticipating the instant he would answer her, turn the key, and unlock what had been kept hidden for so long. How he wished for his beloved buttons to fumble with, his faithful sleeves to tug or tie to check just to avoid for a second longer the grimaces that certainly waited beyond the blood-stained planks, ready to overwhelm him in their wake.</p>
<p>One breath away. Nothing more. One breath to nourish the words that undoubtedly would vanquish her concern for him and finally, after all this pain he had inflicted upon her, would take her ability to find any more redeeming qualities in him, unlike she had in so many monsters before.</p>
<p>NO! </p>
<p>He drew back – from her, the Red Door, the truth. He couldn’t do it.</p>
<p>No. NO!</p>
<p>He spun around, forced himself out of the succubus’ dangerous embrace. The Door wailed, screeched at him, cursing his cowardice, his weakness.  </p>
<p>“I can’t…!” Elijah’s voice was laden with pain and anguish and anger – at himself, his mother, his father, Elena, his brother, Hayley.</p>
<p>
  <em>Make it stop!</em>
</p>
<p>Once again he frantically grabbed his head with one hand, tore at his chest with the other – his despair, his helplessness so raw that he was almost eager to do to himself what he had done to countless men and women before. It would be so easy to break through the skin, the sternum, and grab his undead heart and inflict on it the same pain it did on him. If only to just feel anything but the overwhelming chaos of emotions that ravaged through his mind. He surely deserved it.</p>
<p>Some of those whom he had relieved of their hearts leered through the ajar door, grinning triumphantly at his agony.</p>
<p>
  <em>Just STOP!</em>
</p>
<p>But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t.</p>
<p>Small, strong hands held his, forcing his desperate grip away from his body and above it. She was strong, just as she had explained an eternity ago – and even if she wasn’t he doubted that he would be a capable opponent at that moment.</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare!”, she hissed right into his face and in this instant, her anger at his attempted self-harm was just as tangible as the still seething Demon – the Red Door – that paced impatiently in the back of his mind. </p>
<p>“Don’t you dare!” She emphasized her shouted repetition by slamming his tightly wound fists against the wall milliseconds after his back hit it forcibly as well. “You of all people! YOU?!” Hard eyes stared at him loathingly. “You do not get to give up!” Another slam of his fists. Another desperate motion to convey her equally desperate message.”You do not give up! Fight it, Elijah. Fight!”</p>
<p>Both of their breaths were fast, strong, and mingled in between them as they stared at each other.</p>
<p>A kind of pressure built within him, rose up in his throat. He thought he might choke on it. But it built and grew until he shouted back, feeling – for the first time in a long while – some form of resilience rear up – despite his desolation – along with his words: “I don’t know how!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her hold on him loosened with every breath just like the hardness in her eyes, changing into a more gentle emotion. </p><p>And it was this tenderness, that kindness – not pity or judgment – that finally, finally! made him say it:</p><p>“I killed Tatia.” </p><p>He didn’t want to see the kaleidoscope of anger and fear and hate but he knew he had to see it all the same. He needed to, as a punishment, a sentence that was more than long overdue. He deserved nothing less and so much more. Having her loathe him, curse him for committing this crime against her ancestor, the woman he had claimed to have loved, the woman she was modeled after, his way too long life would have finally come full circle.</p><p>But she wouldn’t be Elena if she didn’t squash his expectations yet again and make him chide himself for once more underestimating her. She didn’t seem outraged anymore, nor angry or fearful. She didn’t step back or distance herself from him in disgust and her hold on him remained confident and strong.</p><p>He didn’t care how much but time passed them by as they continued to look into each other’s eyes, searching for something albeit different and not finding it.</p><p>Elijah was so intently focussed on her, her reaction, her eyes, tried to measure her breathing, looking, searching for the loathing he was so sure would come – he hated himself so deeply for it, he couldn’t comprehend she or anyone wouldn’t – that he missed the stronghold of the Red Door loosening. He missed the sigh of relief that escaped his mouth, missed when the tension left his body when the slowly waning pressure was released from his chest. Missed his features shifting from the pained frown to a forlorn plea.</p><p>
  <em>She knew. Someone knew!</em>
</p><p>“I didn’t even remember.”, he whispered.</p><p>Slowly Elena let go of his wrists. She didn’t step away and remained only a hair’s breadth away from him. Just in case. Elijah’s arms dropped to his sides, almost in sync with hers and he continued to explore her eyes, waiting, expecting something, anything to indicate what she was feeling. He could see her mind working, calculating what to do or say next. Deciding on whether or not to disrupt this fragile silence, this stalemate moment. Because right now this could play out in numerous possible ways and depending on the point of view either could be worse than the last – “Or better.”, whispered the Door miserably.</p><p>It opened then, quietly. Almost hesitantly.</p><p>“This is it.”, the Door continued. </p><p>The moment he finally noticed the silent creak of the Door, Elijah tried to prepare for the worst, fearfully snatching Elena, pressing her to him, anchoring himself. He hid his face in the dark curtain of her hair.</p><p>But the explosion never came. </p><p>There wasn’t a sudden wave of all the dead he had left scattered on every continent of this besotten world. No torrent of souls, no cacophony of screeching insults, of suffocating masses desiring to overwhelm his mind and tear him from his last bits of sanity like he had torn them from their lives.</p><p>With an anticlimactic sigh, the Door slowly opened and one foot appeared and one hand carefully curled around the time-worn wood. </p><p>His hold on Elena tightened. If he were a better man, he’d have pushed her away instead of clinging to her even more, to save her from the onslaught that – he was so sure – would come. But all fight and all strength had left him. He was ridiculed to depend on her and her strength, her stability and relied, trusted on her being able to withstand whatever might step out of the gate to his own, personal hell.</p><p>A second foot followed. The temptress, the red Katerina was gone and replaced by a more timid version of the same face.</p><p>“Tatia!”, he whispered.</p><p>Shocked, he suddenly held the woman before him at arm's length. Agony filled his every muscle as he saw her right before him, his face deformed in a grimace of pain. “Tatia. Oh, God!”</p><p>He stared at her confusion filled eyes. Searched them. She was here. Wasn’t she? She felt so real. His hands flew over her features. Her arms. Held onto her neck. A single tear rolled down his cheek. </p><p>“Please. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to...you have to believe me. I never wanted to hurt you! Please!” He let go and looked at her again. She was here. </p><p>Quickly he grasped her again in a deep, crushing embrace, a frantic need to make her see, make her understand what he had barely started to understand himself.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>Of course. Why should she reward him with a reaction, with what he wanted, when her silence would punish him far more than any cursed word or blow or cut ever could?</p><p>Yes, he wanted her to scream at him, shout and spit insults. Needed her to! If what he’d done didn’t deserve her pure white hate what crime ever would? </p><p>Right?</p><p>If she so chose to break his skin and bones, make him bleed as he bled her, he would let her do it without a fight. He’d welcome it. He wished for it. It was the least he deserved. He was her murderer.</p><p>But she didn’t give him any of it.</p><p>Still overwhelmed in a frenzy of emotions he continued. He needed to explain. “Forgive me! Oh God! Please!” He forcefully placed his forehead to hers. “Forgive me!” His hands were unable to rest. Touching, cradling, grabbing her face, hair, everything he could reach in this tiny room of two. “Please!” </p><p>He wasn’t sure where he was when he was. He knew that she was here, that he had been given this opportunity to beg for the one thing he never even should have the audacity to ask for. But he did anyway. He had to! </p><p>“Forgive me!” </p><p>Her confusion had made way to sadness. A deep, color-changing, multilayered sadness. Her face was torn, her jaw locking and unlocking as if she had to tame her emotions, to control them, hide the extent in which his outburst moved her in one way or another.</p><p>“I loved you! So much.” </p><p>This was it.</p><p>The dark red secret that had thrown him into a crushing depression after his mother’s revelation was the fact that he had been living every day of a thousand years in a lie fabricated by himself. The lie was so deeply, perfectly ingrained in his very being, it had become reality, truth. The Red Door was his own doing, a creature he had created. A millennium lived on the foundation cast out of one act, one choice, born in his weakest moment. </p><p>If there was one thing he had been proud of in his life, it was his control. It was what had set him apart not only from his siblings but from his species as a whole. That he was in fact looking down on other vampires was no secret. He had detested the weakness of his kind. Always. He was bored by their games and their inability to rise above their supernatural instincts. It was what Niklaus admired and hated most about him. Control had been his. He was control.</p><p>Not anymore. He had lost it the moment he had accepted the truth in this old crypt filled with the scent of burning candles, dust, death, and his own blood: He was a hypocrite with nothing to show for in his long, long, long life. Every decision, every word, every feeling of being better, somewhat morally superior, every snobbish thought he held for his half-brother – it was all built upon that one lie.</p><p>The hunger for blood, for her blood, had been stronger than his beloved control. Stronger than the love he swore he had felt for this lost woman. Stronger than his promises to her, to himself, to never waver in his affections for her, the promise to stay the gentle, noble protector she had seen in him. He had sworn in the privacy of a prayer to never become a husband like his father, to be better, for her, himself. To be a real father to her child, despite it not being his own. To do everything in his power to shield her from harm. Never should she suffer from his hand. He had sworn this. He remembered that! Vividly. He had set up a fire, a ritual his mother had taught him when he was but a boy. He had chanted his promise to the Gods his parents had brought with them on their journey to the new land. When he closed his eyes that memory was devastatingly clear. He would probably be able to smell the wet forest soil and the timber burning if he just tried hard enough. </p><p>The Gods hadn’t listened though. On the contrary. When they had assigned a role for everyone in Fate's big play they’d chosen the part of the fool for him.  </p><p>No one could have prepared him for the smell of her blood. The force of it hitting his nostrils, the fire it would set alight in his throat and the all-encompassing need of his every cell to draw and pull and rip even the last drop of her blood from her small body was overwhelming. He remembered the thought that the drum of her heart was delicious in its speed. A siren call. At that moment the air had been thick with her fear and he had bathed in it. With all these memories so freshly unearthed, he even recalled the second her last breath had brushed weakly over his blood-stained cheek.</p><p>It had been his mother then, who had told him what to do after. It had been her control. Never his. All that had been his was the degree of perfection in his execution of his mother’s orders:</p><p>Clean yourself</p><p>Pretend.</p><p>Forget.</p><p>He had loved her. Deeply. Fully. Passionately. With a mortal heart, with it’s numbered beats and he had been prepared to devote each of those beats to only her. But it hadn’t been enough. His lust for her blood was stronger.</p><p>Nothing he’d ever done in the centuries past could compare to this first violent, horrid kill, no matter how cruel and brutal his deeds had been since. Killing Tatia was the stain on his soul he would never be able to rid himself of. </p><p>“Mother said she’d take care of it.”, he began hesitantly, not knowing if his voice was at all cooperating. “That she’d make it disappear, my sin, the kill, as long as I’d do the same. I had to clean up. I had to bury it.”</p><p>Elena’s hand found its way back to his cheek and he almost wept in relief. She was still here. She wasn’t disgusted. Horrified. Repelled. Shocked. Afraid. She was still here and she kept her hand steady and strong and gentle and almost lovingly on his face.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault,'' she said. Her voice a glass of a whisper. Fragile but clear and it held everything he had never admitted craving until this day. These small affections, all of her open care. He held onto her face, his breath faltering, heavy.</p><p>“Don’t.”, he whimpered quietly, pained, not even knowing what he was begging for. But she didn’t listen.</p><p>Her second hand rose and ran her fingers tenderly through his hair. She grabbed at it suddenly, at him. Making sure that he listened to her, and as much as he wanted to, she wouldn’t let him escape her.</p><p>“Yes, you made mistakes. Big ones probably but...look at me...” Closer. Elena. “Ester had no right to do what she did. She turned you into something you never would have chosen for yourself. And for what? For herself!” </p><p>His hands clenched. For a moment he was afraid that his fingers would break her skull. He had to direct the ache somewhere and she was there and she took it. Every painful beat of his heavy heart she took. His eyes closed, preparing for the agony he was sure would soon follow her words. </p><p>“She was afraid, she couldn’t lose you. She was selfish. So selfish. What she did to you...God, Elijah. She was your mother!” His face was contorted, the definition of agony. “She didn’t try to cover up your mistake. No, she tried to cover her own. Her mistake. She was ashamed of what you’ve become, for everything you have done, could do. She was ashamed of herself because of her own selfishness. Yes, you killed Tatia. But how could you have known? How could you have known any of it? The woman who cursed you didn’t even know what her spell would create, she didn’t know about the blood, about the heightened emotions, any of it! There was no one to warn you, to teach you. No one was able to tell you what you had become. No one knew what a vampire was.”</p><p>“Elena.” His hold on her changed, weakened. His mind was the storm, his memories the unruly sea that threatened to overwhelm him and he was just about to let it consume him. Hadn’t he fought enough? </p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.”, she concluded silently and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, pressing him to her, engulfing him in her. </p><p>“I forgive you.” She whispered into his ear. As did Katerina. As did Tatia. </p><p>With one heavy breath, he released the tears he had wanted to shed ever since his mother had broken into his mind. All he wanted to do was let go, fall, and never stop.</p><p>That’s all the weight in him, the Red Door, told him to do. </p><p>“Let go.”</p><p>And he did. </p><p>As if hit by a bullet he collapsed when his body and mind finally, finally found in her words the permission to sever, to abandon its tension.  </p><p>When his body suddenly succumbed to the relief, dropping to the floor he found her following, anchoring him. Her hands never left him. Her hold on him never wavered. </p><p>Never would he have thought that he’d be thankful for the transformation of Elena Gilbert. He had once mourned the loss of her humanity, feared that it would include her losing that what made her shine beyond her youth. At this moment though, he was glad. As a human, she would have been too fragile for the pressure he inflicted upon her as his own arms tightened around her. </p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.” </p><p>Encased in her embrace he couldn’t deny anymore that he felt lighter. With every touch she gifted him, he felt the burden pressing down on him lift. How much he had carried, all this time, all by himself only now became clear to him. With this realization, with her words of forgiveness still so fresh in his ears, resting in her mercy he finally found an iota of forgiveness for himself.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.” He could barely hear her now but he felt her breath as she recited her mantra. </p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>With every repetition, she chopped away at the once feared barrier. With each silent sob and every wrecked breath, he felt the door crumble, splinter by splinter, turning from this menacing thing to an aging, decaying relic.  </p><p>And so they sat there, pressed together, pressed to the wall. Lost to the sealed off world. Only existing in the aftershocks of his deliverance.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>For the longest time, I intended to end it right here. In limbo, open to what might happen to Elena and Elijah after his revelation. Also, admittedly...because I kinda didn't know where to go from here. Do you know the Buffy Musical episode (a brilliant piece of work in its own right!)? Well, after the monster has been dealt with all the characters don't really know...where do we go from here...and I felt like that for the longest time...Just FYI I started writing this loooong before there was any talk of season 5...And...yes, if you like to have it end here...I guess that's fine. But I am writing something atm that I want to add now as a small resolution. At least...a small one. </p><p>Stay tuned. I hope you enjoyed reading this thing so far.</p><p>And thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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